The commercial that brought Elis and Maria Rita together launches the debate: must the use of artificial intelligence have artistic, as well as technical, sensitivity?
Elis Regina (1945-1982) and Maria Rita they finally sing together. On the night of this Monday, July 3, a car brand launched a campaign that combines the voices of a mother and daughter in one of the classics of Brazilian popular music, Like our parentswritten by Belchiorre.
The film, lasting about 2 minutes, moved fans and artists on social networks. In it Maria Rita, driving a latest model electric vehicle, is paired with her mother, driving a vehicle of the same brand, very popular in the 70s and 80s.
The advertising is very well done. Director Dulcídio Cadeira, awarded in Cannes for the Balões commercial, made for MTV Brasil, in 2011. Cadeira had already thrilled the public – and obtained many shares – previously with a commercial starring Fernanda Montenegro for a bank, a beautiful end of the year message.
The film reuniting Elis and Maria Rita draws attention for the fact that it used artificial intelligence (AI) to create Elis behind the wheel of the vehicle. A deep fake. This needs to be clear: it was not Elis’ voice that was being handled by the AI. Elis has recorded Like our parents in 1975. It was this phonogram that was used, with the addition of Maria Rita’s voice and a new instrumental accompaniment.
Emotion aside, there’s something about the ad to analyze: it subverts – and, okay, advertising is an expert at it – the message of Belchior’s song. Like our parents speaks of a conflict of generations, in the midst of military dictatorship. He questions the adaptation and repetition of behaviors in a society that seemed to conform to the direction of the country. “We are still the same and live like our fathers,” goes the main verse of the song, repeated a few times.
Elis launched Like our parents at the show Glossy faux, in late 1975, even before putting it on record. In the show, when he sang the final verse of Belchior’s text, exactly the verse “We are still the same and we live like our fathers,” he pointed backwards, without turning around, and called attention to half a dozen puppets created by the set designer Naum Alves de Souza for the set design.
They were dolls with sad faces. Simple spectators of life. Something like “the people in the hall are intent on being born and dying”, first sung by Mutantes, a parable of bread and circus politics. Created by Gilberto Gil and Caetano Veloso named Panis et circuses.
In the commercial, the final cry of the original Elis recording, in ‘pais’, is diluted. Melchior’s message was strong, perhaps time was lacking. And time is money. Once, the musicologist Zuza Homem de Mello (1933-2020) claimed that this cry of Elis – this was her intention – precisely carried the conflict of an entire generation. Don’t look for musical coherence in the commercial. And that’s not even the intention of the show, of course.
In the commercial that brings together Elis and Maria Rita, ‘we are always the same and we live like our parents’ sounds like a convergence of generations: my parents and I like cars. Before the engine. Now, electric – and the auto industry is in full swing, targeting consumers of so-called SUVs. In São Paulo, the new Master Plan aims to authorize condominiums to build more parking lots. Where are we going, literally?
It is worth mentioning that Elis loved to direct. In one of his specials produced for Globo TV, in 1971, he appears skilfully driving a convertible on Avenida Niemeyer, in Rio de Janeiro. In the 1970s, when he moved to Serra da Cantareira, in São Paulo, he bought a jeep to take his children to school.
the spot with like our country merges and confuses several topics: the genuine emotion of a generation who longed to hear Maria Rita sing with Elis (in 2012, the singer participated in the Rediscover tour with her mother’s repertoire), the use of AI – once again , Elis’s voice was not recreated using this technology – and the distortion of an emblematic song of Brazilian music.
One last detail: initially, the duet between Elis and Maria Rita was to be released on digital platforms, in its entirety. For now, that won’t happen. It will be limited to advertising.
More on Elis
In addition, with less commercial pretensions, but without technological skills, the Instagram profile Analyzing: Elis Reginaone of the most active on the singer’s memory, also on Monday evening, he released a fan-made style recording that creates, via AI, an unedited recording of Elis.
It’s about the song At the balls of life. The composition by Milton Nascimento and Fernando Brant was on the list of songs that the singer intended to record in the album that she would begin producing a week after her death in January 1982.
While lacking in technical sophistication, what remains in the car manufacturer’s commercial – in some passages there are pronunciation errors and tuning problems – also causes amazement and emotion at first. Where can AI lead the debate about recreating the voices of singers who have died? And who can do it? Fans or record labels? Should artistic sensibility be preserved? This discussion is just the beginning.
Source: Terra
Earl Johnson is a music writer at Gossipify, known for his in-depth analysis and unique perspective on the industry. A graduate of USC with a degree in Music, he brings years of experience and passion to his writing. He covers the latest releases and trends, always on the lookout for the next big thing in music.
